Sunday, January 14, 2024

VISHNIAC (2023) NYJFF 2024 January 16 with a Q&A and in theaters Friday


This is an excellent look at ROman Vishniac and his family who went on to achieve things int their own right. Filled with interviews, films and recreations the film fills in the blanks on a man who most people know only through his photographs. Its a film that wonderfully reveals a living breathing man to be behind some amazing images.

What I knew of Vishniac going into the film was that he took hundred of photographs on the eve of the Second World War and preserved a record of a way of life largely wiped out by the Nazis. I didn't know that at time he was making  scientific films which millions of students for decades. I also didn't know  about his children's role in all of this.

Giving full breath to the man behind the images VISHNIAC  does what all good biographies should do which is not only give us a fuller appreciation of the subjects achievements but also reveal them as a person. The highest praise I can give the film is that Vishniac comes across not as some mythic figure but someone just like us. He's someone we'd want to hang out with because he isn't that far from us.

I was delighted. I was moved.

This is a super film.

Recommended.

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